Pages

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Model Behavior

My youngest son and I were having an argument, and it wasn’t
going well.

His ropey arms were crossed over his skinny chest, and an
exaggerated frown pulled his lips and eyebrows down at exactly the same angle.

I felt that his room needed to be cleaned. He disagreed.
When I played the mommy card, “Because I said so,” he pulled out the big
guns: this caricature of displeasure.

***

As a college student taking freshman psychology, I was
required to participate in experiments. Cheap
(read as “free”) test subjects for experiments designed by grad students.

During one of these experiments, pictures were flashed onto
a large screen for just a fraction of a second, and we were meant to write down
the emotion we saw on the person in the picture.

Later it was explained that this tested our ability to read
non-verbal cues—the messages we send with our facial expressions and body
language.

Why is that important?
Studies have suggested that only 7% of our communication actually
happens through language, which means that 93% of our communication is
through those nonverbal cues.

I find it ironic that I participated in this experiment, because
years later my youngest son was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome. His position on the autism spectrum means
that for some reason his brilliant brain simply doesn’t see or understand nonverbal
cues.

Sort of like colorblindness, in a way. Except he’s blind to 93% of the communication
we use as human beings, instead of just being unclear on the difference between
green and blue.

I look at those numbers and think, the world of human
interaction is an iceberg: 10% or less is on the surface—obvious because it’s
what we say. The biggest part of it, the dangerous part of
it, is the 90% lurking under the ebb and tide of our conversations—body
language, facial expressions.

It’s that 90% that will sink you, just ask the Titanic.

***

Back to my son, and our little disagreement.

He’s seventeen, and very bright. He’s fully aware that there are icebergs
floating on the sea of communication he’s trying to navigate.

So he takes what he knows and mimics it.

Arms crossed over the chest, lips and eyebrows drawn
down. This is displeasure.

It’s also a mirror.

It is an exact replica of the body language I adopted a
micro-second ago, instinctively, to express how I felt.

This is how he steers around the icebergs. Sometimes it works and he enjoys smooth
sailing. Sometimes it doesn’t, and he
plows right in. He keeps sailing either
way, because the only other option is sinking.

And he’s unsinkable.

This post is my response to a prompt from Write On Edge to write using a line about someone crossing their arms (I'm paraphrasing). The image that popped into my head was of my son, attempting to argue with me, copying my body language. Using my mannerisms to express himself. As frustrating as autism is, there are also those moments of wonder and humor.

Thank you for stopping by, and please take a moment to share your thoughts in the comments!